Tag: thrift

August 23, 2017 – Bringing Shoreditch to South Bend (OOTD #93)

Published on by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Can you believe it’s already been basically two months since I was in London?

Yep – on this day, two months ago, I was preparing myself for my trip and beginning to plan out what I wanted to do with Amanda. That all already feels so far away, though – like another lifetime.

In a way, it feels like I’ve passed through at least two separate lifetimes since I was in London. My time working at the hardware store over the summer was definitely a unique experience, and of course, Welcome Weekend at Notre Dame was another thing entirely. London, my summer job, Welcome Weekend – they literally only happened within about two months of each other, but I’m pretty sure I was a different person entirely during each era.

Now classes have begun, which feels like another existence in and of itself, completely separate from Welcome Weekend. I remember complaining a lot during Welcome Weekend about all the activities we had to do and all the forced socialization. Now I realize I should have been grateful for the time when it was just freshmen on campus whose only job was to mingle and get acclimated to life.

Because, of course, now I still have the job of mingling and getting acclimated to campus life, but with the added responsibility of being a semi-adult who attends six stress-indcucing classes.

So today, my second day of class, I decided to bring back a little bit of the London Meilin, the one who had a mean fake British accent and could use the Underground like a local. I bought this denim dress in a thrift shop in Shoreditch, which was probably one of my favorite days of the entire trip. And that’s saying something, given how London was perhaps some of my favorite days of my life.

For real though, just wearing my Shoreditch dress made me feel a little more relaxed and at home here at Notre Dame. I wasn’t quite able to transport myself back to London and the mentality I had there, but it helped.

One of these days, I’ll really have to make a point of taking a day trip into Chicago. South Bend is, if I’m honest, pretty lame as a city (even more so than Lexington), and I’m craving the urban vibe. I think there’s a way I can grab a shuttle into a train station, and then catch a train into the city. At some point when I’m not laden with homework (Will there ever be a point when I’m not laden with homework? Hopefully lol), I need to figure that out.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Dress: Blitz (vintage)

Top: Free People

 

August 20, 2017 – The Blog Post Of Posing With My Hand On My Sunglasses (OOTD #90)

Published on by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Look, posing for photos is hard.

The best poses are dynamic, but dynamic poses draw attention, which is not always what I want, especially when I’m doing my best to fly under the radar at my new school and not make too much a fool of myself. That’s why I wound up with a ton of photos with my hand on my sunglasses today – it’s a simple pose isn’t embarrassing. I’m already a freshman, which is just about the dorkiest thing to be; I don’t also want to be a dorky freshman posing dramatically for photos in front of my class buildings.

But I can’t help it – the buildings here at Notre Dame are so pretty. I want to pose with all of them and take photos, strange though that may be. Maybe things will change once I’ve gone inside some of these buildings and begin to associate them with the stresses of school, but for now, I’m still in awe of the beauty of this place.

Today was the day my parents – all the parents, really – left. I love those guys, and I’m unspeakably appreciative of all they’ve done for me, so it was far from easy to say goodbye. I did though, and so did they, with very minimal fanfare involved. That was the best way, I think – prolonging things would have served no purpose.

On another note, with my parents went their photography skills and non-judgmental nature, so for a few hours there, I had absolutely no means of doing my pictures for my blog post. Thankfully, one of my three roommates has been cool enough to agree to do my OOTD photos for now, at least until I can hunt down someone else who’s willing to do it consistently and long-term.

Also thankfully, this awesome roommate has some pretty  sweet camera skills – and an iPhone 7 that takes those cool portraits with the blurry backgrounds. I’ve always wanted to do those things!

But for real, I can’t keep bothering my roommate to take pictures of me everyday – she’s busy and I’m sure she doesn’t want to be bothered to do work for my blog when I’m not paying her. I’m considering now buying a tripod and a remote and trying to do photos on my own? I’ve heard of some fashion bloggers who do that.

Do you have any suggestions for what I should do about taking my pictures? Are any of you fashion bloggers who take their own photos – and if so, what’s your technique? I’ll take any advice you can give me!

I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Blouse: ASOS

Sweater: Unknown (thrifted)

Skirt: Forever21

July 30, 2017 – Yay Adoption (OOTD #78)

Published on by lensembledujour12 Comments

Odd title, I know, but I mean it – yay for adoption!

On Sunday, my parents and I went out for lunch in celebration of Gotcha Day – the day my parents "got" me from China.

I don't believe I've mentioned this before, but I was adopted from Hunan, China when I was a few months old. I mean, I guess you probably could've figured that – it is a white dude who's in my Father's Day photos - but I haven't discussed it formally. Not that I personally think there's much to discuss; it's not like I remember anything about China or my birth parents, and I've always considered myself much more American than Chinese, or even Chinese-American.

So in general, my adopted-ness plays very little role in my everyday life. The exception of course is Gotcha Day, my family's little celebration of, basically, the fact that we are a family. We usually go out to eat, and my parents get me a little gift; it's not unlike a mini birthday party. My grandmother sometimes joins us too. It's just a nice little way for us to bond, and of course, a nice little excuse for us to eat out.

This year, we ate out at Bella Notte, one of my favorite restaurants in all of Lexington. I adore Italian, and this is probably the best Italian I've ever had outside of Little Italy in New York. Everything tastes so fresh and flavorful, the décor is stylish and charming, and I don't even feel badly about eating the pasta with heavy cream sauce – it's that good. My dad and I always get the family-size Penne Gorgonzola to share, and we can nearly finish it off.

After lunch, we went out and did some shopping for my dorm room. There wasn't a lot we could get, since I haven't seen my room yet and don't really know how much space I've got, but I did pick out some nice sheets and a duvet cover. I'll have to do a Saturday Musings + Coffee post about it sometime and show it all off to you guys; I'm definitely excited about it all!

I know this is kind of a short post, but I think I'm going to end it here. Thanks again to my parents for being super cool and also making it so that I didn't spend the rest of my life in a Chinese orphanage!

I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Unknown (thrifted)

Pants: The LOFT

Scarf: American Eagle

July 23, 2017 – I Got Your Picture, I’m Coming With You (OOTD #73)

Published on by lensembledujour3 Comments

…dear Maria, count me in…

All Time Low is one of my favorite bands, so when I got to see them in concert on Sunday, you can say I was just a little hyped. I did my hair and makeup up all nice, took a few selfies, and then I hopped in the car with my friend Amanda (the same one I did London with), and prepared myself for the 3 hour-long drive up to Columbus, Ohio.

About an hour and a half into the drive, we hit our first issue – a traffic buildup just outside of Cincinnati. Thankfully, I was using Waze, which was able to give us another route around the the traffic, but we still lost about a half an hour. And we had to drive through Covington, Kentucky, one of the sketchiest places I've had the misfortune of driving through (it's right up there with Camden, New Jersey – my dad's hometown), where I glimpsed more shirtless old men than I have ever cared to have seen.

Anyway, we finally made it to the venue, Express Live, where we were greeted by a pleasant surprise – it was a pretty small venue! That's always a good thing for concerts because it means, in a free admission seating arrangement like we had, you're more likely to be able to get up close to the stage.

On the other hand, being a smaller venue, there was no kind of overhead coverage to protect the audience from the weather. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, but of course, it rained.And rained and rained and rained. It began right after the second opening act left the stage. Amanda and I had moved down into the pit and were standing there in the drizzle kicking ourselves over not bringing in our raincoats (and we couldn't go back and get them either – no re-entry) when the rain began to pick up, as it does in storms. We spent about 15 minutes running around, trying desperately to find some place where we could take shelter – there was literally nothing like, anywhere, not even a merch tent – before we finally found a bathroom that we could hide in.

And that's where we stood for the entirety of the third opening act, smushed up against the bodies of other soaking wet and miserable girls, shuffling around every once in a while when someone needed to get to the toilet, and listening to muffled sounds of the band through the brick.

Finally, about 40 minutes later, the rain let up. But by then my hair and makeup was pretty much ruined, so much so that I even considered not bothering to do photos today. I really loved my outfit though, so I forced Amanda to get some shots as quickly as she possibly could while trying to keep as much of the camera as possible under her rain poncho.It was all a very interesting experience, not unlike the adventure we had in the Atlanta airport (which, might I add, is abbreviated ATL – the same way as All Time Low…suspicious…). As for the All Time Low itself? They were great! Definitely a band I would go to see again, no question. Getting to hear songs I love like "Missing You" and "Weightless" in person was lovely and well-worth getting soaked just an hour prior.

Looks like that's it for today, so I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Unknown (thrifted)

Shorts: Abercrombie

 

July 21, 2017 – Let’s Do The Time Warp Again (OOTD #72)

Published on by lensembledujour3 Comments

As promised from yesterday's blog, here's the blog post for Friday the 21st, posted a day after the blog for Saturday the 22nd due to technical difficulties and writer idiocy.
More on that here.
On Friday, my dad and I went out hiking to Red River Gorge, a beautiful canyon system in Central KY. We both got the day off from work and made it into something of a father-daughter thing. Actually, we'd initially planned on doing a canoeing trip on the Kentucky River, but that had to be canceled and rescheduled as there hadn't been enough rain in the week prior for the water levels to be high enough.
Hiking's pretty cool though, so no complaints from me there. I will always prefer to hike in the fall (pretty leaves, cooler temperatures, yada yada), but I admit, it wasn't bad at all. We left the house at like, 7:30 in the morning and got to the trails by 9 or 10, so it hadn't gotten blisteringly hot yet, and it was a cloudy day, so we didn't really have to deal with the sun beating down on us. Plus, for extra protection, we opted for a trail that was down in the canyon and surrounded by trees, so it was nice and shady.
My family and I went hiking a lot when I was a kid – Cumberland Falls, Red River Gorge, Gatlinburg – if it's in the Midwest/Southeast near Kentucky, I've probably been there. I used to absolutely hate it though – the bugs, the heat, the physical exertion – it wasn't really my style. I guess it's still not quite my style, as I still hate bugs and heat, but I do have a greater appreciation for the natural environment you get to experience when you hike.
Our trail led us to something called Whittleton Arch, a nice little rock formation about a mile and a half from the road. I, of course, took immediately to climbing it and posing on top of the rocks, letting my dad get some cool photos like this:
For real though, I like hanging out with my dad, and I wish I got to do it more. He's a pretty cool dude, and I'm not just saying that because he has the patience to take a decent chunk of the photos for this stupid blog, including the ones from this trip. I'll miss him when I go off to college, and that's what made our time together hiking so nice.

Want to read more about my Red River Gorge adventure, and how it affected my fashion choices for the next day? Part 2 of the epic saga is already up here!

Looks like that's it for today, so I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Adidas (thrifted)

Top: Forever21

Shorts: Target

July 20, 2017 – Infernal Kentucky Heat (OOTD #70)

Published on by lensembledujour9 Comments

I feel like I do a lot of complaining about the weather here.

For real, it’s quite possible that every other blog post on this silly little website has a reference to my outfit being impractical for the humidity and heat that we get in Kentucky, and yet, I have made no efforts to change my habits. From my unconventional summer solstice outfit to my shameless reliance upon layering, not for warmth, but for fashion, it’s clear that summer is simply not my season.

In fairness, I did just start this blog in the late spring, meaning all you guys have gotten to hear about are my summer outfits, and with them, my relentless complaining about summer weather. It’ll get better in the fall and winter, I swear! 😉

Still, it must come as no surprise to you that on a day like this, with a heat index at 100 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity at some ungodly high percentage, I’m wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a polyester jacket – in other words, I’m begging for death via heat stroke.

On another note, I got to do my pictures today in this lovely park not far from my house. It’s really nice because they leave part of it, some wetlands and the area around them, unmowed and wild, meaning I got to do this fun shoot in the tall grass, making me look cooler than I actually am.

(Did I just call the photos I do for this blog a “shoot?” Does that qualify as pretentious?)

Looks like that’s it for today, so I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Adidas (thrifted)

Shirt: H&M

Jeans: Hollister

 

July 16, 2017 – Back in the USA (OOTD #68)

Published on by lensembledujour11 Comments

After a harrowing experience in the Atlanta airport involving 22 hours, sleeping on a chair, and an epic showdown against a cockroach named Jonny, I'm finally back in Lexington.

It's definitely a relief. London and the approximately 240 hours I spent there were wonderful, but 22 hours in a dirty, ugly airport such as ATL is enough to make anyone miss home and its cockroach-free bathrooms.

My first day back, my mother had a picnic that she'd organized along with her work friends, so my father and I stopped by for a few hours. I was exhausted and cranky, not to mention generally bitter that it's a solid 10 degrees hotter and feels 100% more humid here in Kentucky than it was in London, so perhaps I was not the best company for anyone there, but it was still nice to get out of the house. The hot dogs were pretty decent too.

Plus, the picnic was held at a really beautiful location. The church we were at, Walnut Hill, was constructed back in 1801 on land donated by Mary Todd Lincoln's grandfather (wife of the famous Abraham), and there was this awesome old cemetery around back with graves dating back to the late 18th century. Nothing as old as some of the stuff I saw in London, but still probably one of the oldest buildings in the state, and arguably just as cool (and this church doesn't charge 20 pounds for admission! cough cough, St. Paul's Cathedral)

Neither my father nor I are particularly sociable people, so when we got bored of staring at the people talking, we wandered off to explore some of the church's grounds. I got my photos for my outfits in in this beautiful little courtyard area, and my dad and I made a sport of trying to find the oldest gravestone in the cemetery, made low-key dangerous by the high grass and my idiot decision to wear wedges.

I guess that's it for today. Not a very eventful blog post, I know, but I hardly did anything other than sit at home, jet lag-heavy eyes trying to stay open while my whole body tried to tell them it should be six hours later. It wasn't too bad though – much better than when I returned from China after my trip in third grade. I think I had to take two or three days of school off to recover from that.

I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Liz Claiborne (thrifted)

Skirt: Vintage

 

July 11, 2017 – Just Let Abbey Road Be (OOTD #65)

Published on by lensembledujour8 Comments

Do I get any points for that title? No?Day 6, we saw the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing, and let me tell you, that was an experience. Not wholly in a good way, and not wholly in a bad way, it was just – ugh, allow me to explain:

Abbey Road is just a road. I have no problem with that – they’re not going to close off an entire road and make it into a museum because some famous people 50 years ago took a photo there. But since it’s a road – like, a real functioning road, with cars and angry drivers with places to be – it makes it a real chore to cross it and take your silly touristy photo.

But Amanda and I were determined. We didn’t make it all the way out to London, I-don’t-even-know-how-many-miles across the ocean, to not get a picture to show our grandchildren. Plus, we’re both Beatles fans (I had a phase in middle school…), so we really wanted to see this famous spot.

Well, there were about 50 other tourists there at Abbey Road Studios that day with the same mindset, some of whom knew English traffic laws and some of whom didn’t. In England, it’s law that cars must stop if they see a pedestrian at a zebra crossing, so if you’re standing there waiting for traffic to clear so you can get a nice, car-free photo, you’ll be disappointed to see that the cars will all stop, lining up on the road if they have to, to let you walk.

So it’s rather awkward when a tourist just stands there as the traffic piles up at the crossing because the tourist wants the road to clear so they can get a good picture, and the traffic just wants the tourist to walk and get out of the way. Add into the mix, there are likely several other tourists all trying to cross the road at the same time as you, and you definitely don’t want them crossing the road with you and ruining your picture.
In short – it’s stressful, and, unless you’re a Beatles fan on a mission like Amanda and me, probably not worth your time.

I should also mention – before Abbey Road, we saw the Tower of London, something that Amanda was very interested in seeing. Personally, it wasn’t my favorite old building we saw (that honor would probably have to go to Westminster Abbey), but I’m glad we saw it anyway. It’s much bigger than I expected, and even though we were too cheap to pay the admission

to look inside, it was still cool to stand in such proximity to somewhere where so much history has taken place.


I also got noodles at this amazing place just off the Liverpool station that specialized in ramen. Shoryu Ramen, it was called – and it was really good. I’m a sucker for noodles, I guess it’s a part of being Asian, and this place was like a dream come true. The only Asian food we get in Kentucky is PF Chang’s and cheap takeout; these were real, high quality Japanese noodles. 

And that’s about it for the day, actually. We stopped by Baker Street just to say we had but found that the line for the Sherlock museum was too long to be bothered with, got tea again at the British Museum, and then stopped at a little art shop called jlkjfjlacmdls so I could buy a new sketchbook since I used up my old one on the flight over.

The nice (?) thing about that day was that we finally got to experience the infamous London rain. It’s been beautiful and sunny and even kind of hot these last few days here, but we hadn’t seen any of the cloudy skies and rain that London is known for. That finally changed as we were coming out of the British Museum. I don’t know, it’s not like I’ve never seen rain before, but something about being there in London, wearing a navy blue blazer, walking the street and actually knowing where I was going, and not really minding the rainfall, that made me feel like a real local.

It was cool.

That’s it for today! I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Chaps (thrifted)

Shirt: Target

Jeans: Abercrombie

July 9, 2017 – Shoreditching (OOTD #63)

Published on by lensembledujour14 Comments

Oh dear, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

When I started blogging, I promised myself I wouldn’t let it go so many days between posts that I had to apologize to my readers for my tardiness, yet here I am.

View this post on Instagram

Am I "edgy" yet

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

In my defense, London has had me distracted in the best way possible. There’s so much to see and do here, and every morning, I found myself eager to get up and start the day and every night, I found myself exhausted from the day’s adventures.

No need to worry though – my dear friend Amanda has been doing an excellent job documenting my outfits over these last several days, so the daily blog posts will continue from now on, just with a bit of a delay. Perhaps it’s better this way – gives me more time to distance myself from the day and give a true reflection, eh?

Anyway, flashback to Sunday, July 9 – probably my favorite day for the whole of my trip. We saw Shoreditch that day, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a charming little neighborhood in London that’s basically a hub for hipster culture. There are dozens of amazing little vintage shops run by guys with beards and girls in beanies, and I spent more money than I probably should’ve in the Brick Lane Market.


But what was best about Shoreditch was that it wasn’t crawling with tourists like some of the other places we’ve seen have been. I get it, London is a big exciting city, and people from all of over the world flock to it as a center for western history and culture (myself included), but the huge tour groups and confused-looking people standing right in the middle of the street trying to read a map get a little annoying.


Granted, I’ve been that confused-looking person standing in the middle of the road before, but that doesn’t make it much less annoying.


Second best to the lack of tourists was the amazing street art in Shoreditch. I mean, just look at some of the gorgeous photos I got that day, and it had nothing to do with having interesting angles or particularly good lighting. It was all in the backgrounds; they’ve got some stunning works all over the place there, and I wish I could’ve stayed around to get even more photos.


I also had fish and chips from Poppies’, which is, according to Trip Advisor, one of the best fish and chips places in London. To be honest, I don’t really like cod, but this was pretty good. I don’t know, I’m visiting London, I feel like I have to taste the signature dish whether I really want to or not.

Shoreditch: 10/10 would recommend if you’re planning a London trip.

View this post on Instagram

It was as good as it looks, don't worry

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

View this post on Instagram

Art's pretty cool

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

View this post on Instagram

Street art is cool! (London edition)

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

 


That’s it for today! I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Turtleneck: Free People

Skirt: Abercrombie

July 7, 2017 – Shameless Tourist Style (OOTD #61)

Published on by lensembledujour7 Comments

London: Day 3

Yesterday was what Amanda and I have been calling our “tourist day” because we hit all of the typical London tourist things: Big Ben, the Eye, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the O2.


The two standouts of the lot were easily Westminster and the O2. Westminster makes the list because we kind-of, sort-of snuck in without paying admission – what we had planned on doing was simply attending one of the free Holy Communion services so we could at least see the inside a bit, but we ended up having to leave early because we were concerned about making an appointment we had at the O2. So we tried to slip out the back…just to find that the doors we had gone in had been closed off.

We probably wandered around the Abbey for 30 minutes trying to find the exit. I’m not complaining though, like I said, it allowed us to see more than we would have had we done what we originally planned to do, which was just admire the outside. Plus, we didn’t have to pay admission! Though I do feel kind of badly about that, wish I had found a place to leave an offering or something.


From there, we rushed over to the O2, where we had booked ourselves in for one of their Up at the O2 experiences, where you basically get to climb and walk up on top of the O2. It was spectacular – both the climb and the views. Since we’re lame and wanted to skip out on things like the Eye and Sky Garden to avoid waiting in lines, this was one of our only chances to see London from up high, so that was definitely neat. If you visit London, I would say that this is one experience you can’t miss out on, assuming you’re cool with heights.

That evening, the nieces of the woman we’re staying with took us out for dinner and drinks. In the US, the drinking age is 21, but here, it’s 18, so I got to have my first full alcoholic beverage as a legal adult. I ordered some sort of elderflower and gin cocktail, and it was actually quite good. Neither Amanda nor I had much trouble finishing our drinks off.


After that, we headed home. It was a long, exhausting day, and we just wanted to get some rest. London’s been fun, but also rather draining. I’m so glad I’m here though; it’s a nice way to spend a bit of the summer!

I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Shirt: Unknown (thrifted)

Pants: J. Crew

Top: Thrifted

Trousers: J. Crew (thrifted)